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I
They spend most of their first month of marriage near one another. Whenever he can get away from his duties as the crown prince, Aegon takes her for walks through the gardens and through the Godswood. And although Meera has explored these places many times before when she was only a guest in King’s Landing, she finds something exciting about these excursions with her husband.
(If they are not out and about walking they are in their chambers. Aegon is fond of making love and so is she.)
She is not used to being a princess yet. She still gets startled when people bow before her, when they throw flowers at her for being their beautiful princess. While she knows that she is technically high born, she has never really felt like she is.
Sometimes she feels she may grow tired of courtesies and fancy dresses, but then she looks into her husband’s eyes before they fall asleep and she throws those thoughts to the side.
She is so happy that she does not notice when her moon blood never comes.
II
Daenerys notices it before she does.
Meera often forgets that the queen was with child in another lifetime, in another place. She knows that she is a mother but her children are dragons and citizens and not a seed that quickened inside her womb.
They are supping together one night during the second month. Daenerys had sent away all servants for she often sees no need for them. Meera is sitting and has not even finished chewing her food when the queen reaches over to grab her breast. Before the girl can do or say anything Daenerys is asking her questions. Meera finds herself telling the silver haired queen that she has not had to deal with her moon blood for almost two turns.
(She thinks she must have known, but she never thought on it. The words come off her tongue like a foreign language.)
When she tells Aegon of her suspicions he drops to the stone floors of their chambers, openly weeping.
House Targaryean may not die away after all.
III
Margaery Tyrell is a surprising companion.
She is about Meera’s age, though she is thrice wed and thrice a queen. She had managed to come out of the war unscathed and sheltered from Daenery’s rage. After a few months at her home in Highgarden, Margaery had decided to return to King’s Landing to be a lady in court.
She soon seeks out the young princess.
(Meera did not much about the beautiful girl before her. Sansa had only mentioned her one-time companion briefly in passing.)
Margaery surprises her by being compassionate and honest. They quickly became friends, and Meera often finds herself in the company of the Tyrell girl.
When Margaery points out the bump that is starting to swell on Meera’s stomach they both giggle like little girls.
IV
Aegon becomes more distant by the end of the fourth month.
Often times he is not in their chambers when the sun sets, and Meera finds it hard to sleep without her husband beside her. She misses the sound of his breathing, feels naked without his arm wrapped around her.
(The bed feels empty, the room too large. She often wakes in the night thinking he has come in, but he is never there.)
When she does see him she never asks him about his absence.
He is, after all, her husband and as a wife she should be trusting. She does not care if he is off bedding whores or doing anything else at all.
If he comes back to her that is all that matters.
V
The letters from Jojen and Bran keep her strong.
Bran’s letters are short and sweet. He tells her about having to be the Lord of Winterfell once more. Sansa, he writes, is moving the northern capital elsewhere, to a new castle of her design. She can hear the laughter in his voice when a letter asks her if learning to be a princess is as hard as learning to be a lord.
(She thinks it is far more difficult. Bran has been around lords and ladies his entire life. She is from the swamps, what should she know about fine dresses and finer wines?)
The letters from her brother are far more substantial. Jojen writes with great length and with great detail. She thinks that, even as far apart as they are now, there will never be any great secrets between them. His letters come far more frequently than Bran’s and fill her with much more joy.
When she is bedridden with the sickness of pregnancy, with Margaery not allowed to visit her and an absent husband, the two boys who are both so far away are her only companions.
She thinks that being a princess is mostly about being lonely.
VI
Daenrys had ordered a dragon pit to be built for her children, and in the sixth month it is completed.
Meera spends hours watching the creatures brawl in the sunlight, gazes on the fire that the breathe. She thinks that there is nothing lovelier than a dragon in battle, and nothing more fearsome either. But then she remembers watching the dead come back to life, and the chill of never-ending winter and she reprimands herself.
(She can not, will not, think of the children. They are bigger nightmares to her than any dragon or white walker could ever be.)
She is northern girl in the blistering heat of the north. Sitting so close to the dragons she realizes that she ice trapped in a kingdom of fire.
She prays that the flames do not melt her into nothing.
VII
In the middle of the night Aegon stumbles into their chamber.
She can hear him sobbing as he undresses and climbs into bed. As he lays under the blankets she can feel him trembling.
(Even now she barely knows this husband of hers. He is as much of a stranger as he ever was.)
In the dark she grasps for his hand and Aegon immediately rolls over into her. She can feel the tears rolling off his face and onto her shoulder. He kisses her hair and murmurs apologies into her ear.
He apologizes for not being there the past few months. He says it over and over agin until Meera fears that his voice will go hoarse.
She turns her face to press into his. Noses touching she murmurs her forgiveness.
His hand rubs her belly, now very round with child, and kisses her and Meera thinks that there could not be any greater bliss than this.
VIII
She finds herself immobile for the first time and it scares her.
She knows that she can move, that her legs are capable of taking her where she wants to go, but the pain is too much for her to bear most of the time. So she sits bored in her room.
(There is nothing that can hold her interest for too long. Her spirit is out running in the Godswood. She finds herself wishing to be Bran, wishing that she too could be two places at once.)
Aegon comes and goes, but he has a life outside the walls of their chambers. He is with her more often then he had been, but his visits can not seem to last long enough.
One day Margaery comes waltzing in, brown hair tumbling down her back. Before Meera can even react the Tyrell girl is brushing her hair and gossiping like a maid. Meera finds Margaery’s laugh infectious, and as she is being told the antics of court she laughs deeply.
The child presses its foot against her stomach like it was laughing as well.
IX
The mother watches over her as she wails and screams.
She is unaware of the women standing by her bedside, she can barely understand the words out of their mouths. In that moment all she knows is the pain propelling itself forward through her legs. She knows that there is someone holding her hand, but she does not know whom and it scares her.
(She is frightened but she must be strong. She must be as unmoving as her northern blood, as unyielding as the flames she took when she married. She is ice and she is fire, she can not give up here.)
All at once the pain subsides and there is a loud cry.
One of the women places her babe in her arms. The hair on his head is a light as his father’s, but his eyes are green like the forests of her home.
She holds her child to her breast.
He is hers.
Day One
When Aegon is finally allowed to be by her side he rushes with all his love and all his tears.
He holds the child gingerly in his hands, green meeting violet.
Placing the child back into Meera’s arms he falls softly onto the bed, slips one arm around his tired and strokes the little bit of hair on his son’s head.
They name him Rhaegar.
(This is my family, Meera thinks.)
He kisses her forehead, and all she feels is bliss.